Faceless
by C. Bracken
Summary: We are the faceless. The ones hidden behind the white masks and blast visors. We fight for whatever reason we can scrape together, and we die in obscurity, our corpses left without names. These are our stories.
1. Did He Hate Me?

Did He Hate Me?  
  
It was supposed to be so easy.  
We were the latest graduating class of the Imperial Academy. We were so proud of ourselves, as we received our honors at the graduation ceremony, and even prouder when we received our first assignments. Many of us, myself included, were assigned to a brand new star destroyer, fresh off the docks at Fondor. It was called the Firebolt. I remember when I first laid eyes on it, after its maiden voyage from Fondor to Caridia. It was a thing to behold, a matte gray behemoth, a marvel of Imperial technology.  
We boarded it and for the next few months we enjoyed military life flying regular patrols of a small part of the Corellian Trade Spine, between Jumus and New Plympto, and sometimes to Duro. It was a boring, uneventful life of eating, sleeping, and drilling, punctuated by the occasional terra leave when the star destroyer stopped to take on fresh supplies. So, when word got around that we were going to see some combat, every one of us TIE pilots were talking about it nonstop. The bulk of the crew, however, being more experienced than us, was less enthralled. But us TIE pilots, every one of us was fresh from the Academy, and itching for some action.  
Our orders were to go to a remote part of the nearby Sacorrian System where Intelligence had discovered a rebel frigate was undergoing repairs after a run-in with another star destroyer patrolling from Saccoria to Talfaglio. It had been badly damaged in the resulting battle, and was thus an easy target. The Firebolt was to enter the system, scramble its fighters, and destroy the frigate before they had a chance to escape or call for help.  
It was going to be so easy, and we were all excited about our first real mission. A few of us threw a little party in the hanger the night before, with some inexpensive Corellian Brandy one of the other pilots had sneaked aboard on our last terra leave. Of course none of the officers knew about it. They would have had us court marshaled.  
The next day we suited up and climbed into our cockpits, ready to launch on a moment's notice. We were about to make it a glorious day for the Empire. But it was not to be.  
When we dropped into the system, the frigate's repairs were already underway, and the Firebolt's sensors forwarded targeting information on twenty-four enemy fighters, already on an intercept course with the Firebolt. This wasn't what we had expected. This wasn't what we were prepared for. We...we were helpless. They split as they came. Half of them flew up over the top of the ship, out of sight. The other twelve went under, and began to fire on us even as we launched. We never stood a chance. I saw my wingmate's fighter explode just to my left, and two other fighters ahead of me were gone with the first volley. Those of us that survived the first wave panicked. Only a couple of squadron commanders were left, and they quickly tried to take control of their squadrons, but we were too afraid to function. Eventually, they got us in control, just in time for us to return fire on the rebel fighters' second pass.  
The fighting escalated from there. The Firebolt wasn't firing at the rebels very much, probably because they were more likely to hit us than the rebels, who were obviously veteran pilots.  
At one point during the fighting, I managed to hit one of the rebel fighters, purely by luck. It was an X-Wing. Its engine exploded, the upper right one, I think, but not enough that it couldn't still fly. It was flying away, limping away from the battle, when a shot from one of the Firebolt's turbolasers blew it away, into a cloud of shrapnel. I was mesmerized, watching it, when I felt my TIE fighter jerk right, hard, throwing me against the right side of the cockpit. Before I realized what was happening, I was in a free fall, tumbling away from the Firebolt and the fighting. My left solar panel had been shot off, and by the time I managed to stop my fighter from tumbling, my engines were dead. Out of my cockpit's window, I could see the battle as it drifted farther and farther away. I tried my comm unit, but it was dead too. Everything in my fighter was dead but me, but I would be to soon, when the oxygen supply in my suit's life support system ran out.  
Eventually, I saw the Firebolt's cannons start to spew green lasers into space. I guess, either they called the TIEs back, or all the TIEs were destroyed, or maybe they just didn't care whether or not they hit their own fighters anymore. In any case, the battle was over soon after that, and I saw the Firebolt's big guns open up on the rebel frigate, which exploded after only two volleys.  
Then the Firebolt jumped into hyperspace, and I was alone, drifting through space in a dead fighter, with nothing but the stars to bear witness. There wasn't even a planet in sight.  
My oxygen is almost out now. I have maybe two, three minutes left. Looking back, I wonder if the pilot of that X-Wing I shot...I wonder...did he hate me? In that instance after I shot him, but before he died...did he hate me? I would like to think he did not, because I did not hate him. I wonder if the pilot who shot me is wondering if I hated him. I wish I could meet him...so I could tell him that I do not. 


	2. No Holodrama

No Holodrama

I've done a lot of things I'm proud of during this war. I guess that's just my lot in life as a commando. It only makes it worse that I'm a squad leader; that I have to be the one who orders the soldiers to perform such deplorable acts, or the one who orders them to their deaths.

I remember that when I was a kid, I used to love those war holodramas where the courageous captain lead his troops to a great victory against impossible odds, against the dirty, evil Bad Guys, without losing even one man. How I wish it were really like that; it's a good day when we come back from a mission with only one casualty.

I think I lost the naiveté imposed by those holodramas on my first real mission. We were supposed to raid an installation where they were keeping the plans to some new super-weapon. We were dropped three kilometers from the installation, and waded through two kilometers of swamp and a third kilometer of bog to get there. I'm still not sure what the difference is. Every so often our squad leader would signal us to get down because someone thought they heard the hum of repulsorlifts or the whine of thrusters. We would squat down in the muck so that only our heads were poking out of the brackish sludge just enough to breathe until the captain signaled that it was okay to move again. One of the guys told me about these parasites that lived in swamps and attached themselves to your legs and sucked all the blood out of you. I was almost more afraid of them than I was of the enemy.

When we reached the installation dawn was only a few hours off; the sky was already starting to brighten. The captain told us we would have to camp out in the bog and wait for night, and we did, all the while with sentries watching to make sure the soldiers stationed at the installation hadn't spotted us.

The installation itself looked like nothing more than a large bunker. It reminded me of the bridge of a star destroyer from the front, but with out the huge shield generators. The end with the entrance was about twice as wide as the back; it would have been the top of the bridge.

As evening set in we took our places. Four soldiers would remain outside to snipe from the bog at any soldiers who tried to attack us while we approached the bunker, which was at the center of a large clearing. The rest of us would enter the bunker, deal with any resistance encountered, and take the elevators in the narrow end of the building down into the actual complex, where we would split into three groups of three, each with their own specific task. I was in the group that was supposed to secure our escape.

As soon as the sky was dark we moved. The nine of us that would be entering the installation rushed out of the bog as soon as the snipers had all fired off a shot, taking down three enemies and injuring a fourth in a matter of seconds. As we hurried towards the entrance, I could see a number of troops on the roof of the bunker take aim at us, their gleaming armor making them more visible in the dark. They had the advantage here; their helmets had night vision and motion sensors built in. The captain had given us orders before hand to ignore anyone who tried to stop us from anywhere other than directly in front of us, and to leave them to the snipers. Our trust was rewarded, and the soldiers on the roof went down before they could get off more than a few shots. A man on my left went down. As I hurried by I told myself that he had just tripped, that he hadn't been shot.

The captain threw a thermal detonator ahead of us at the entrance to the bunker, and it went off just as several more troops came hurrying through it, killing them and damaging the blast doors so that they wouldn't close. We burst through the doors firing, and several soldiers went down. I guess we took them a little bit by surprise, because they hesitated for a moment before returning fire. Another one of ours went down, and the last of the enemy troops that weren't standing behind the blast shield at the other end of the bunker went down. The captain shouted something I didn't hear, but the others started to move back out of the bunker and I followed suit. As soon as we were out the captain tossed another detonator into the bunker, and before it even exploded we were rushing back in. The explosion killed several troopers, and gave us enough of a distraction to rush up to the blast shield and get around it, opening up on the remaining soldiers. The elevators were now right in front of us, but as we moved towards them one opened and four more soldiers came through. We mowed them down before the doors were even open all the way.

Once we were on the elevators we assessed the situation very quickly. Both of our casualties had been from the same sub-squad, leaving only one of that squad alive. Quick changes were made, and one of the men from the captain's group switched to the depleted one.

The elevator doors opened and we piled out, weapons at the ready. The elevators were at the end of a corridor. Stepping off of them you had to take an immediate right, go down the corridor, and take another right. Then you were in the main complex. Even before we reached the end of the corridor blaster bolts sizzled through the air in front of us, burning pockmarks into the wall. One of the men threw a detonator around the corner, and we heard the enemy shout and panic.

We rounded the corner as soon as the explosion went off, firing as we went. In a matter of moments there weren't any enemies standing in the room, and we split off into our sub-squads. Mine went charging off across the room towards the corridor on the far side. It would supposedly take us to the vehicle hanger. The captain's squad headed down a corridor on our right. Their mission was to capture the plans to the weapon. The remaining squad went back into the corridor we had just left, to destroy the elevators.

Before we even made it to the end of the corridor more guards came at us. We gunned them down as we ran, and burst into the hanger looking for more soldiers. We didn't see any, but the man on my right went down with a smoking hole in his chest, and a hail of laser fire came down on us. My remaining team mate growled under his breath about auto-cannons, and I just starred at the body of my fallen ally until the still living man jerked me roughly back into the corridor where the auto-cannons couldn't hit us. Carefully, he looked around the corner just enough to note where the cannons where, then pulled back.

Taking off his pack, he pulled out his glow rod and hurled it into the room. The auto-cannons opened up on it, and as soon as they did, he started firing on the auto-cannons. He was a good shot, and the auto cannons were soon destroyed.

He told me to go open the hanger doors while he rigged up the vehicles we'd need. As I ran through the hanger, I noticed that most of the floor space was taken up by speeder bikes, although there were several AT-STs as well. By the time I had the doors open the rest of the team was back, minus one, with stormtroopers bringing up the rear, which my partner blew away with one of the AT-STs. As soon as they were gone, we hopped onto the speeder bikes that my partner had rigged up. Four riderless bikes followed us out; their computers slaved to his. We stopped just long enough to pick up the three surviving snipers, then tore off through the swamp. Even as we raced away we weren't done losing men. One of the bikes crashed into a tree on the way back.

We lost five men on that mission, and as it turned out they died for nothing. The data we had been sent to retrieve had been transferred and erased from the computers nearly a week ago.


	3. Ice Ball

Ice Ball

Wars aren't won by dying for your cause. They're won by making the other man die for his. It's what I was taught; it's what I believe. It hasn't let me down yet.

We're just about ready to go now. I check my blaster rifle. It's an E-11, standard issue. I wonder for a moment whether I ever used this particular one before. Probably not. I check the power cells, the tibanna gas chamber, wipe some grime off the end of the barrel. There's something reassuring about its weight in my hands.

The captain briefed us a while ago. The enemy's dug in deep, and shielded. They're resisting, of course. They always do. If there's anything admirable about the rebels, it's their determination. They're always prepared to die for the Rebellion. This is good. It means we have the exact same aim in mind.

The walker shakes around us. The captain returns from the cockpit and tells us the rebels are using some kind of air speeders. We shouldn't worry. The walkers are too heavily armored for their blasters. We'll be to the generators any minute now, then we'll deploy.

I try to remember the name of this planet. The captain told us in the briefing, but I wasn't really listening. Oh, well. It's not really important. Just some ice ball, unfit for human habitation. I wonder if this one will be remembered like Yavin or Dantooine. We're wearing special armor for this one, it's got better environmental protection, so we won't freeze. I've turned mine off. It's plenty warm in the walker.

The ground shakes, suddenly, and nearby. As if something heavy has fallen. Some of us turn to each other and whisper anxiously. I thought they weren't going to bombard the rebels, because of the shields? If they changed their minds, they missed pretty badly, didn't they? Or maybe the shield deflected the blast back at us? The captain runs up to the cockpit and comes back. He's wearing his helmet, so I can't see his expression, but for some reason I think he's worried. His voice is a little shaky at first as he tells us not to worry. One of the others, I don't know his name, asks what we've got to not be worried about. The captain tells him not to be a smartass. Our walker shakes again. The captain tells us not to worry again. I'm not sure why; none of us are worried but him.

There are more of the sounds of the bombardment, or whatever it is, outside. The captain keeps telling us not to worry, which does more to make us start to worry than it does to stop us from doing so. Then there is one, very loud explosion. The pilots call out form the cockpit; the generators have been destroyed, get ready to deploy.

We make our last equipment checks and pull on our helmets. They're differently shaped from our regular ones. I remember the first time I put one on. I couldn't see anything. Now, though, my eyes adjust to the filters almost instantaneously. I can see just fine. We cluster around the egress hatch as it opens and the zip cords come out. I hook my foot into the loop of one, grasp the thick wire, briefly wonder what kind of metal it is, and step into the air. The zip cord stops just inches from the ground and I step off, releasing it. It soars back to the egress hatch with a sharp _zip_. Those of us already on the ground move to make room for the rest. The last few down are carrying heavy metal cases. They're black, stamped with the Imperial crest, the symbol of our Empire and its invincible might. They're E-Webs and their power supplies, I know. We pick them up, two to a case, and hurry off toward the rebel base across the snow. Someone looks back. He must be new. He shouts, and points. A few of us look. There are walkers going down, the rebel speeders zipping around them. I can't tell what they're doing from here, but every so often one flies in circles around the walker's legs, and the walker falls over. That must have been what was worrying the captain. No sense worrying now. We aren't on a walker any more.

The captain shouts at us to keep moving, to get to the base. As we run the walkers lay down suppression fire amongst the rebel forces which seem to be retreating, heading back towards us. The walker we rode in fires at the base, blowing a gaping hole in the ground a hundred meters from us. The new guy, the one who looked back, he shouts, They could have killed us! The rest of us remain silent, hurrying to the hole. We trust the walkers and their pilots. They wouldn't have hit us. Other squads from other walkers are running toward us. We reach the hole first. There is a corridor beneath us. The rebel base is underground. We drop down in. Other squads head for the main doors as our walker fires on them, trying to blow them in for the others. They're heavy blast doors though. It will take some time. Our entrance is quicker.

A voice calls through the base. Imperial troops have entered the base! Imperial troops have entered the base! It is cut off. We know our job. We spread throughout the rebel base, firing on all we see. We kill many. Word comes that Lord Vader himself has entered the base, whispered from trooper to trooper. We continue to spread. They continue to resist. Many cry out, For the Rebellion! Then they die. My beliefs hold firm.


	4. For the Rebellion

For the Rebellion

They're in the base now. I don't think we have long. I shiver, cold with terror despite the warmth of my thermal suit. The base keeps shaking with the force of the walker cannons. I saw them. I was in the trenches before they fell. I lost my unit in the retreat. Now I'm with another squad I don't know, but it's better than being alone.

I think we're in the south corridor, moving towards the command center. The squad's captain says we need to make sure the command gets out okay. Snow and ice keep falling on our heads as we run, our boots clanking on the metal plates in the floor.

I hear an explosion ahead of us. More stormtroopers must be coming in. I raise my blaster rifle in anticipation, and the others do the same. We round the corner to the gleam of white armor, and open fire. They fall back, most go down, some get to cover and fire back. I cry, "For the Rebellion!" and adrenaline flows and for the moment I'm too hopped-up to be afraid, even as the man on my right goes down, his rifle firing into the ceiling.

The base shakes again. We're prepared for it, they aren't and we're able to finish them off before they get back to their feet. We rush on ahead and the fear returns as the adrenaline fades. Oh god, that man beside me died, right there beside me. I want to throw up, but I'm too scared to.

The man ahead of me goes around a corner and a split second later his body flies back against the wall in a shower of thick laser bolts. The captain swears and throws a detonator around the corner. It explodes and we burst into the corridor, weapons at the ready to encounter a pile of rubble from a collapsed ceiling and the bodies of several stormtroopers clustered around what might have been an e-web before the detonator got to it.

The captain swears again, and heads back the way we came. We follow.

He says we can't get to command fast enough now. We're going for the transports. We encounter more stormtroopers on the way. We kill them, they kill us, our survivors hurry on, without even enough time to close the eyes of the dead. There are few of us left now as we enter the east corridor complex, and there is another blast that shakes the base and collapses some part of it somewhere. I hope it's the part where they're coming in.

More troopers block our progress, there's another e-web, and it fires on us. We hurry back, trying to take cover. Someone screams as they go down, someone else yells as the captain goes down in a hail of red hot fire. He falls facing me, his empty eyes staring, his mouth silently moving, perhaps giving us final orders. I feel my eyes watering. I stand up from behind the cargo crates I was cowering behind, the adrenaline returning. For the Rebellion!

The others take up the cry, and we fight until the stormtroopers are dead. The others look to me now. I led the cry, so now I'm leading the unit, I guess. We take the e-web and rush on, only to find another collapsed passageway. We turn back, try another way. Blocked. Collapsed. It's the same everywhere. We're trapped, and we can hear the sounds of stormtroopers' footfalls on the metal plating, coming closer. There's only one thing to do.

We find a blocked off corridor. It's not hard. We set up the e-web, pile up crates and rubble, form a barrier. We check our weapons, reload, ready ourselves. There aren't many of us left. I wish we had even just one more thermal detonator. The footsteps are louder now. The man on the e-web flexes his grip on the handles; the others check their blasters one last time, needlessly.

They're here now. There are many of them and few of us.

The adrenaline pumps. We cry out.

For the Rebellion.


End file.
